


Jamie

by Limecola



Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Movies 1984-1994), A Nightmare on Elm Street - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nonbinary Character, Police, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 17:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21140837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limecola/pseuds/Limecola
Summary: Just because they only met Freddy Krueger in recent years doesn't mean that was where their troubles started.Set when Jamie was 8 years old.





	Jamie

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a larger series of stories set in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Jamie snuck into the kitchen, their empty Hello Kitty backpack in hand. They ignored the smell of blueberry muffins piled high on the cooling rack, even though it was within reach of their grubby hands. Instead, they ducked their head into the cupboard below the counter.

All the extra jars and containers got dumped down here. Jamie sorted through the new arrivals, pleased with the number of snug-fitting lids.

Soon, the front pocket of Jamie’s backpack was bulging with little plastic and glass jars. The main compartment was reserved for today’s real prize: a family-sized, white plastic ice cream container. They shoved it in firmly so that the bottom of the backpack bulged, dangerously thread-bare, but there was still little room for the zipper to close. Jamie tried to force it with one knee pressing the container in deeper, like they’d seen their father do with sleeping bags. They’d connected the teeth along either side when a heart-shaped tab broke free from the zipper. Jamie lost their grip and the backpack jumped, banging against the cupboard.

“Jamie?”

Jamie froze, listening for the screen door. When they didn’t hear it clattering, they risked a peak around the corner.

Through the patio doors, Jamie could see their mother’s tanned arm lounging over the armrest of the dirty plastic lawn chair. The sun on the patio was so bright, reflecting off the whitewashed baseboards, that the arm looked to Jamie kind of like a roast chicken in the oven.

“Yeah Mom?”

No movement.

“Be back in 30 minutes.”

“Ok Mom.”

“Set the timer.”

Jamie abandoned their backpack for just a moment, scrambling up the counter to grab a chicken-shaped plastic egg timer. They struggled to quickly turn the knob halfway around its track. It immediately began ticking loudly. Jamie shoved it as deep into their pocket as it would go.

“Bye Mom.”

Jamie grabbed their backpack, zipper sliding back down its track like an opening maw, slipped into sandals and ran out the front door. Once out of earshot, Jamie fought with the zipper till only a few inches of plastic were visible. Good enough.

The bikes were still in the driveway from yesterday, and the helmets were scattered around the front lawn. Jamie took a moment to knock their helmet against their knee a few times to get rid of bugs, then buckled up and hopped on their sun-warmed bike.

Jamie could feel the heat radiating off the pavement on their bare toes. The pavement was deep black and looked almost gooey. They rode past the remains of the monster grass snake that had been run over last week. Its body was flat under the tire tracks, and its dried flesh sunk into the cracks in the pavement.

About five minutes of hard pedalling, then a quick turn around a tight corner, and the depths of The Pit soon revealed themselves to Jamie behind the roadside guardrails. Slopes of soil, mostly compacted by heavy machinery, dipped into the landscape, only to rise back up in manmade hills. Jamie didn’t know why workers had started digging here, in the big forest clearing, but the men in yellow hats were almost never around to tell kids to stay away. Today, a neighbourhood kid a grade below Jamie was riding a razor scooter down a compacted dirt pile. Jamie made sure not to get too close to him.

Pumping the bike pedals aggressively, Jamie lowered their head to the handlebars to duck below the heavy chain that blocked the entrance to The Pit. Jamie felt and heard the rusty metal scrape over the top of their helmet, but they cleared it without losing much speed.

Then, it was down the grass-spotted slope, past a dusty yellow construction vehicle, and across the mud flats. Usually the lowest points of The Pit were sticky and difficult to ride through, but the weather had been so hot this spring that the ground was cracked, and Jamie’s bike kicked up dust. The mosquitos that usually buzzed low to the ground were gone, and Jamie imagined that they were hiding in a log deep in the woods.

Jamie reached the opposite slope of The Pit. They knew the spot where a little path made the climb less steep. Just before they reached it, Jamie hopped off their bike, and pushing it up the slope by the handlebars.

Soon after scrambling over the crumbling lip of The Pit, Jamie let their bike drop into the tall grass by a chain-linked fence broodingly circling the area. They left their helmet fastened and climbed over the fence, with only a little difficulty due to their backpack’s swinging bulk.

Through a rocky dried-up ditch and into the woods, Jamie’s feet found a poorly defined trail probably only used by children and animals. The egg timer was clicking impatiently in Jamie’s pocket, the bell inside rattled softly with each step. But they refused to check on it.

A familiar mound of roots appeared, where a tree had fallen years ago. Only a moment later they caught sight of red yarn tangled in a group of trees up ahead.

Skipping the rest of the way down the path, Jamie entered the “clubhouse”. The ground here was buried in the browned tree needles, smothering the ground vegetation. Jamie threw their backpack down at the base of a big fir tree that marked the centre of the little tipi formation. The younger, dead trees and big fallen branches had been leaned against the fir to form a kind of simple skeleton structure. Wherever they crossed, the narrow trunks and large branches were bound at seemingly random intervals with thin, deeply rusted wire. Overtop and next to the wire, they were haphazardly bound again with dirty and rotten red yarn. The yarn was other places, too: tied into bows around trunks, or just slung over the gaps like party streamers. Attached to the wire were bells, small and metal like the kind in bird cages. Even though the bell clappers had rusted out of most of them, Jamie still had a gut feeling that the bells would help keep unwanted visitors away from the clubhouse.

Whoever had originally built this simple structure, Jamie was happy to claim it as their own now.

The most striking feature of the clubhouse wasn’t the red yarn or the bells, but the multitude of glass and plastic containers it contained. Some littered the ground. Others has been jammed into the crooks and open spaces within the structure of the tipi. A few were missing their lids and filled to the brim with murky rainwater, but all the rest were sealed tight. Even in the opaquest plastic containers, it was obvious that all with a lid held something inside – some contained a dark fist-sized glob, some a handful of spots like pebbles, and a few had only an odd murky smear lining the bottom of the container like mud.

A pickle jar had rolled some distance away, and now lay against a log. Jamie approached it, wiped the curious ants off its surface, and raised it to their face to peer at the dark glob inside. A bumpy toad lay upside-down at the bottom like a wet rock, its mouth wide open and its stubby legs curled inward. Jamie shook the jar, and the contents _splat_ around wetly inside. The legs didn’t uncurl, and the creature showed no sign of life. Jamie brought the jar back to the clubhouse, and shoved it between two loosely wired branches, where it stayed suspended next to a baby food jar half-filled with dead earwigs.

Jamie sat down with their back against the fir tree, lower bark uneven from being picked at. They unloaded the new jars first, placing them carefully on the needle-strewn ground. Next the ice cream container, though the zippers weren’t eager to unstick from their ruts now, and it took some pulling.

Just then, Jamie heard a caw overhead. They looked up into the branches of the fir tree in time to spot a crow land next to its already-stationed friend. They both looked down at the clubhouse, hopping back and forth and cocking their heads eagerly.

Jamie forced themself to stay still as one bird fluttered down to the ground. It looked at Jamie, cocking its head around again and again, but Jamie didn’t move.

They watched as the crow hopped over to an old yogurt container and started to pry the lid off with its beak. Jamie’s curiosity started to turn to anger. They remembered last summer, when the family had been setting up the picnic table and a group of crows snuck up on the barbeque, flying off with a couple of hotdogs while Jamie’s Dad yelled and ran at them.

Slowly, without taking their eyes off the crow, Jamie reached their hand almost to the ground, and slowly moved it back and forth.

The crow up in the tree made a noise, and the one on the ground hopped away from the container, alert, its eyes squarely on Jamie.

Moving just their eyes, Jamie looked up at the tree. That crow was looking at them, too.

Jamie didn’t move. The timer in their pocket seemed very loud now. But after some apparent deliberation, the crow on the ground went back to its business, while the one in the tree stared Jamie down. Jamie looked back at it, expression neutral and body still. The pads of their fingers touched a smooth rock. Jamie’s hand closed very slowly over it.

The yogurt container cracked open finally, and the bird dipped its head inside, pecking at the bloated morsels floating in brown water.

Jamie let the rock fly, like a baseball, in the fastest smoothest motion they could muster.

The crow in the tree above seemed to explode into a flurry of screeching and frenzied flapping. It flew up high then down low over and over, weaving in between trees.

The crow on the ground barely had the chance to let out a choked croak. From Jamie’s perspective, it was now little more than a mound of puffed feathers, its wings and feet sticking out of the mess at unexpected angles. The yogurt container was on its side, rolling slowly away and spilling to the ground a trickle of dirty liquid.

Jamie jumped to their feet, their heart pounding.

They cautiously approached the dead bird, its friend still screaming and hopping around above. One of the dead bird’s wings was unnaturally twisted open and pointed straight up to the sky. There were spots of blood on the ground from an unseen wound.

Suddenly, the feet started scrambling erratically, claws catching and flinging pine needles as it tried to get a hold of something. The already-open beak twitched soundlessly wider, its eyes big and shiny as glass.

Jamie wondered idly where they’d hit it with the first rock. They pried a larger stone from the ground and positioned themself above the kill.

* * *

The timer rung loudly. The dead crow’s companion let out one last screech and flew away. Deep in the woods, Jamie could hear the echoes of distant cawing.

Darn.

Mom might not let them go out after school tomorrow if they were late for supper.

Picking up their incredible prize by its now-curled legs, Jamie tried to decide what to do with it.

If they left it on the ground, ants would eat it. Even their new ice cream container wouldn’t hold it unless Jamie was willing to scrunch the body up real small and shove it inside – which, they weren’t. They didn’t want to ruin the wings.

Jamie carefully put down the crow and started to pull red wool down off the trees. It broke easily with the rot, but eventually Jamie got enough to wrap the feet up tight. Then they pulled a bell free from its rusted wire, using the wire like a hook under the wool to hang the bird upside-down.

They didn’t have time, but as Jamie started to leave with their now-empty backpack, they turned around to admire their work.

The broken wings hung roughly open, not forming a perfect cross but displaying the big flight feathers beautifully. Blood dripped steadily from the gory mess that was once the creature’s head, from which the beak now hung on only by a few sinews.

* * *

“Wash your hands!” Jamie’s mother barked from the kitchen table the moment Jamie stepped through the door.

Meekly, Jamie slunk to the bathroom and rubbed most of the grime off their hands under the cold water.

The table was already set, with bowls of beans’n’weiners cooling in front of the family. The two toddlers were chewing on graham crackers to keep them occupied, while the older two were fidgeting and whining impatiently.

Jamie climbing into their chair without a word, and to their immense relief, their mother immediately began saying grace.

Jamie fished out a few hotdog chunks while the molasses was passed around the table. Mary and Patricia were working together to convince Dad they needed a disposable camera to take on their field trip, while Justin and Elaine cried back and forth because Mom was giving the other more molasses.

When Mary handed the molasses carton to Jamie, Mom finally spoke up.

“You’re late again, Jamie.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Jamie had to turn the carton all the way upside down to get a trickle pouring.

“Where were you?”

“Bikin’.”

“You need to come home when the alarm goes off.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I was ‘stracted.”

The thin trickle turned into a viscous drip, globs slowly forming on the cardboard rim them plopping down into the bean juice.

“Don’t go over to the Clarks’ house anymore.”

Jamie looked up. The Clarks had bunnies in outdoor cages, and a row of big apple trees in their backyard.

Jamie looked back down.

“’Kay.”

Satisfied, Mom turned her attention to the twins, snappily ordering them to leave their father alone and finish their dinner before it got cold.

* * *

It was a cloudy day, but Jamie’s mood was light as they hurried along the path to the clubhouse. They’d been distracted all day at school, drawing big black birds on little scraps of paper inside their desk.

They were closer than they would have liked before they noticed the yellow streamers between the trees. For a split second, they felt betrayed by the bells. They should have rung to warn Jamie.

“Hey!”

Jamie jumped and took a few scrambling steps back.

A man in a police uniform straightened up. He’d been bending over something.

“What are you doing here?”

“U-uh…” Jamie stammered, searching for words. The policeman was very tall. “Bikin’.”

The officer looked down at Jamie, underbrush and rotten logs standing between them. The clubhouse rose over the policeman’s shoulder, marked off deliberately with yellow tape.

He sighed, crossing his arms and looking exasperated. “It’s ok kid. This isn’t school, you’re not in trouble.”

Jamie didn’t say anything. They just clutched the straps of their backpack, eyes wide.

“Listen,” The officer pointed to the clubhouse. “This isn’t a safe area to be out exploring, ok? There’s some weird people out here doing some weird things.”

Jamie followed the officer’s finger with their eyes. Between the tree branches, they could just make out the crow, its ruined face pointing to the dirt and wings still extended, like it was poised to dive deep into the earth.

“Probably some teenagers into black metal and witchcraft or something.” He spoke dismissively, but he sounded deeply disgusted.

Jamie was suddenly incredibly aware of how their backpack bulged with plastic containers and old Tupperware. The zipper might not even be fully closed.

“Can I go home?” Jamie tried to stop their voice from wavering, without success.

“Uh,” The officer looked all around. “I should probably walk you outta the trees, make sure you’re safe…”

“I know where the road is. I’ll go fast.”

He sighed. “Urgh… Alright kid. Sorry.”

Jamie didn’t understand why he was apologizing. They turned and ran, afraid that the officer would change his mind and start chasing them.

Biking home, Jamie took the long route and stopped by the creek. They climbed down next to a big rock and dumped all the empty containers in their backpack into the running water, then watched them bounce and float out of sight into the woods.

The next morning, Jamie noticed someone had gone through their backpack. The zippers, instead of meeting in the middle, were pulled all the way to one side.


End file.
